CHAPARRAL

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by Michael Moreau, Language Arts and English Divisions

Others went out to polling places to line out those who had already voted. Their frustrating finding, said President John Davitt, a phone volunteer, was that as the day went on it appeared that it was mostly bond supporters who hadn’t voted.  

Vice President Larry Serot was discouraged when as it came down to the wire it looked like a lackluster Democratic ballot might keep potential “yes” voters away from the polls. When he looked at the precinct lists “the people who hadn’t gone (to vote) were on your list. At the end of the day I was really feeling depressed. I woke up at 3 in the morning and debated if I should turn on the computer. But I did, and we had won.”

Both the callers and the called wearied of the process, but “if we hadn’t pushed the last day, it wouldn’t have passed,” said Dan Wengert, ASGCC president and co-chair of the Measure G campaign. President Davitt said that it was the people who worked election day who made the difference.   

Just over 600 votes out of about 21,000 cast pushed the measure over the top. The latest count has put Measure G ahead by 58.1 percent.  

The president said he was always optimistic that the measure would pass, but if it didn’t, he said, “I don’t know if we could raise the money again” to run another campaign. It cost upwards of $150,000 to run the Measure G campaign, the bulk of it coming from ASGCC through student body fees that are normally shared with the college. Wengert said the student government contributed about $105,000 directly to the race, and set aside another $70,000 from reserves for emergency expenses. Additional funds came from vendors, faculty, staff and others. The California Federation of Teachers donated $5,000.

The hottest questions around campus now are: “Now that Measure G has passed, how soon will we see its benefits on campus?” and  “Does Measure G mean the end of our worries over the budget crunch?”

Unfortunately, the answer to the second question is “no,” except that the bonds will free up some money that was earmarked for the Science Center and now can go back into the budget.

As for when we can see the first visible signs of the March 5 victory, Serot said probably as soon as mid-April when a sign will go up in front of the Science Center proclaiming it to be a project funded by the Cimmarusti brothers, NASA and Measure G.

The additional projects funded in Phase 1 of the bond allocations, estimated by Serot to be about $36 million, should begin to go off the boards in the fall.

The first phase includes:
The Fitness Center    
Roofing and air-conditioning ACTC
Acquiring land for ACTC
A new parking structure or structures

The first thing people will see is the groundbreaking for the Science Center, Serot said. After that, the goal is to improve parking by about 1,200 spaces—with the location as yet undetermined.

Had the measure not passed, Serot said, “the biggest problem would be parking. It’s a crisis today.” But before any steps go forward, the Board of Trustees is first mandated to appoint an oversight committee from the community. This committee, whose task will be to ensure that bond money is spent only on projects designated by the measure, must include a cross section of local citizens and college support organizations. It’s unclear how many people will actually serve, but so far, according to President Davitt, more than 80 have applied. The committee must be selected by mid-June.

The next step will be to obtain a bond rating from an agency like Moody’s, then to prepare a prospectus for marketing the bonds. This could be a 60 to 90-day process. Serot hopes to see the first allocation of funds from the bonds by the end of summer.  

Even though most of them won’t be here to see the fruits of their labors, students who worked on the campaign were mostly motivated by the parking crunch. ASGCC President Dan Wengert, a co-chair of the Measure G campaign, said he worked about 300 hours on the measure “to make sure students get better parking.”

To that end he and his fellow ASGCC officers prepared a video presentation they took to more than 100 classes, and all 26 of the student government officers either visited classes, manned the phone banks or went door to door speaking for the measure.

Wengert, like President Davitt, always thought Measure G would pass, but he was skeptical of the 70 percent support indicated in a survey last spring.

The survey, which went out to about 500 frequent voters, reported positive marks for the college. But it couldn’t have anticipated the prolonged downturn in the economy and the record low turnout of voters for this primary. But despite the numbers, Wengert, like others closely involved in the campaign, said, “We’re all just glad that it passed.”

Besides parking, Wengert is especially glad work will move ahead on improving the Fitness Center and other sports facilities. He’d like one day to see a state-of-the-art sports field on campus. It makes no sense, he said, that fans have to go to the high school to see our football team play, or up the hill for softball.

The first phase of the bond money will finance the expansion of the Fitness Center into one of the bleacher sections in the basketball gym. Above the Fitness Center, there will be added 14 new teachers’ offices.

As for parking, the top priority, there are four possible locations for the proposed 1,200 new spaces: under the existing football field (the most costly, and unlikely, of sites), across the street at the existing Lot 31, up Cardiac Hill atop the existing spaces, or at the site of the apartment complex just north of campus.

The advantage of the apartment property, if it could be purchased, is that the project would not disrupt existing parking. A hundred or more spaces would be tied up during construction if the spaces were to be built at the Lot 31 site, or up the hill in the student parking area. It’s also possible that two separate 600-space lots might be constructed.

Opening birthday cards in his office a few days after the election, President Davitt was relieved that it was all over. It was, he said, one of the two major goals he had set before thinking seriously about retirement. The second is to see the college through accreditation. &